If Carly Taylor was going back to in-person work, she had some ground rules. There would be no more after-work responses to her Slack and email. She was willing to go “above and beyond” in the digital days, but now she believed in her right to log off.
“One of the things I don’t like about [virtual work] is the lack of healthy boundaries for when the workday is over,” Taylor says. “But I felt like that was a worthwhile trade off for the freedom I get from being able to work from wherever I want.”
Remote work has blurred the digital boundary between work and life. A 2023 Buffer survey found that 81% of remote workers checked their email outside of work hours. 63% checked their email on weekends, and 48% completed work outside of traditional work hours.
Meanwhile, burnout rates are spiking. Employees are desperately in need of some digital balance, taking time away from their screens for both a professional and digital detox. That balance, it turns out, is hard to come by.
What is digital balance?
For many employees, the workplace is always a tap away. They can open and respond to emails on their phone; a quick ping from their Apple Watch can alert them to a Slack notification. The tethers of work have extended to everyday tech, disrupting the workplace balance.
Taylor has seen work apps invade her and her friend’s lives. She describes some friends who will use Slack’s “do not disturb” function, typically reserved for vacation time, to signal that they wouldn’t receive weekend messages. “That’s the new way of pushing back, making it very clear that you’re not around,” she says.
Reacting to experiences like Taylor’s, Tyler Rice cofounded the Digital Wellness Institute, for which he now serves as the CEO. Rice believes that digital balance is not just an employee aspiration; it should be treated like a health issue by employers across the world.
